Patents

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something or offers a new technical solution to a problem. It is valid for a limited period of time (generally 20 years), during which patent holders can commercially exploit their inventions on an exclusive basis. 

The patent system is designed to encourage innovation by providing innovators with time-limited exclusive legal rights, thus enabling innovators to reap the benefits of their innovative activity. 

Patents belong to the more general category, which is intellectual property. Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. In general IP is divided into two categories:

 industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source,

• industrial property, which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source, 
• copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. 

In the world there is no single patent office, which coordinates the receiving applications and granting patents in force in all countries. For this reason United Nations created specialized agency to promote the protection of IP around the world by cooperation among states and in collaboration with other international organizations. In 1967 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was established. It is dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest.

Current patent system possess some essential weaknesses, including:

• Lack of one single global system of patent law - the best example is situation in UE. 
• Conflicts connected with software patents.
• Patent trolls - firms which acquiring and enforcing patents, rather than create and sell goods (in the past, non-practicing entities – NPEs). They opportunistically litigate over software patents with unpredictable boundaries. Recent studies show that defendants have lost over half a trillion dollars in wealth—over $83 billion per year during recent years and this has not improved incentives to innovate.*  

* Boston University School of Law, Working Paper No. 11-45, www.bu.edu/law/faculty/scholarship/workingpapers/documents/BessenJFordJMeurerM091911.pdf , 24.09.2011  

Despite the drawbacks of the patent system, the number of applications and granted patents has increased rapidly - in the last 20 years it has almost doubled. 

Specification	1990	2000	2008
total number of patent applications	1 006 044	1 373 882	1 907 915
total number of patent grants	410 075	514 884	777 556

Source: www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/ 24.09.2011 

In the following list you can compare countries with the highest GDP and patent applications, patent grants and patents in force by patent office in 2009. 

COUNTRY	GDP Rank	Patent applications	Patent grants	Patents in force
United States	1	456 106	167 349	1 930 631
China	2	314 573	128 489	828 054*
Japan	3	348 596	193 349	-
Germany	4	59 583	14 435	509 879*
France	5	16 104	10 529	438 926*
United Kingdom	6	22 465	5 428	590 043
Brazil	7	21 825**	2 451*	32 484**
Italy	8	9 717	18 277	-
Canada	9	37 477	19 497	134 150
India	10	36 812*	18 230	6 568****
Russia	11	38 564	34 824	170 264
Spain	12	3 803	2 602	166 079*
Australia	13	26 346*	11 863*	107 708*
Mexico	14	14 281	9 629	74 550
South Korea	15	163 523	56 732	637 197
Netherlands	16	2 854	1 948	16 262
Turkey	17	2 732	648	7 472
Indonesia	18	4 606***	-	-
Switzerland	19	-	-	120 178
Poland	20	3 140	3 958	26 327

Source: www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/ 24.09.2011

* - 2008

** - 2007

*** - 2006

**** - 2004

Presented information contains selected data. You can find more detailed statistics about patents by checking following website:

- www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents

- www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/pdf/941_2010.pdf

Universities

Science is a key factor of the development of societies and economies. Universities are among the main institutions involved in the development of science, especially basic research. For this reason below is presented ranking of the best universities in the world and a list of countries in which they are located.

Thanks to transparent methodology and globally sound one of the most popular ranking of universities is the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The ranking classifies more than 1000 universities every year and the list of the best 500 are published on the web.

First ranking was published in June 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and then updated on an annual basis. Starting from 2009, the ARWU has been published by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.

ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution. For each indicator, the highest scored institution is assigned a score of 100, and other institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top score.

Details of Ranking criteria and weights are in the table below.

List of top 20 universities in the world in 2010 is as follows.

University	COUNTRY	ARWU Rank	Total score
Harvard University	United States	1	100.00
University of California, Berkeley	United States	2	72.4
Stanford University	United States	3	72.1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	United States	4	71.4
University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	5	69.6
California Institute of Technology	United States	6	64.4
Princeton University	United States	7	60.8
Columbia University	United States	8	60.4
University of Chicago	United States	9	57.3
University of Oxford	United Kingdom	10	56.4
Yale University	United States	11	54.6
Cornell University	United States	12	52.6
University of California, Los Angeles	United States	13	52.2
University of California, San Diego	United States	14	50.0
University of Pennsylvania	United States	15	49.0
University of Washington	United States	16	48.7
University of Wisconsin – Madison	United States	17	46.4
The Johns Hopkins University	United States	18	46.0
University of California, San Francisco	United States	19	46.0
The University of Tokyo	Japan	20	45.9

Source: http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp

  

In the following list you can compare countries with the highest GDP and the largest number of universities in the ARWU ranking.*  

COUNTRY	GDP Rank	ARWU Rank	Top 100	Top 500
United States	1	1	54	154
China	2	17	-	34
Japan	3	3	5	25
Germany	4	4	5	39
France	5	6	3	22
United Kingdom	6	2	11	38
Brazil	7	21	-	6
Italy	8	18	-	22
Canada	9	5	4	23
India	10	33	-	2
Russia	11	16	1	2
Spain	12	25	-	10
Australia	13	7	3	17
Mexico	14	24	-	1
South Korea	15	19	-	10
Netherlands	16	10	2	12
Turkey	17	39	-	1
Indonesia	18	-	-	-
Switzerland	19	8	3	7
Poland	20	32	-	2

Source: http://www.arwu.org/ARWUStatistics2010.jsp

*Ranking takes into account the total number of universities and their place in the ranking.